


The Shoes

by SunshineExploder



Series: In The Heights One-Shots [3]
Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, based off art by a dope artist whom i adore, benny is terrified of sonny, sketchers are the devil, slushies are probably also the devil, sonny is a magic baby, where is pete i don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9136042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineExploder/pseuds/SunshineExploder
Summary: No one understands baby Sonny. No one really wants to.--Or: the fic where Sonny has light-up shoes and everyone pays the price.





	

Usnavi slowly blinks into wakefulness, having been shaken out of a dream that he can’t quite recall. He looks over at the alarm clock and scrubs the sleep from his eyes so he can see the numbers. 2:03 a.m. Too early to get up for real, but early enough for him to go get a drink for his dry mouth.

 

He stumbles out of bed with a groan. It’s surprising that he doesn’t wake up Sonny as he staggers from the room and out into the kitchen like a drunk man. But the four-year-old is a heavy sleeper. Usnavi doesn’t worry about him much as he goes about the motions of getting a glass of water, albeit very slowly and with much yawning.

 

As he keeps moving, he wakes up more to the point where he can see and think clearly. His actions are routine enough that he doesn’t have to devote full attention to them, so he looks absentmindedly out the window. Everything looks pretty normal at first glance. Even the barrio sleeps at night. He goes to turn away, but does a double take.

 

_ What the hell? _

 

Outside the window, little red lights move in circles on the sidewalk. At first, it’s hard to make out what exactly is going on. But when he flips the lights on, the shape outside soon comes into focus under the glow from the streetlamps. Usnavi’s jaw promptly drops.

 

Sonny is giggling and running around in circles on the sidewalk. He’s got on his new light-up Sketchers, a beloved birthday present from Daniela and Carla. He’d been so excited to get them, and had made a declaration in broken Spanglish that he was going to wear them forever and ever. The little boy didn't even take them off to go to bed and now Usnavi can see why.

 

Usnavi’s scream can be heard all around the barrio that night.

 

**_“ABUELA!”_ **

* * *

 

The same thing happens nearly every other day for almost a month.

 

Usnavi will wake up in the middle of the night and bolt into the kitchen to look out the window. Without fail, Sonny will be back to giggling and running in circles. No matter how many times Abuela Claudia, Nina, and Mrs. Rosario tell him off, he manages to get out there every night and rejoice in his light-up shoes. For the record, all three women blame Daniela and Carla for getting him the shoes to begin with.

 

The strangest thing about the whole ordeal is that every time Abuela Claudia and Usnavi go out to drag Sonny back in, the front door is locked. The doorknob is oddly high and Sonny isn’t tall enough to reach it, nor does he know how to unlock the door. He’s not strong enough to open a window, never mind the fact that it would definitely wake up either Abuela or Usnavi. There’s no other ways out of the apartment. Nobody knows how he keeps getting out.

 

Benny develops a theory that Sonny is actually magical in some way. In fact, one day he swears that he sees Sonny flying in the bodega. But when Usnavi looks, Sonny is sitting on the counter innocent as can be. Absolutely no one believes Benny, but he is convinced that Sonny is magic. He refuses to go near the boy and refuses to be alone with him. Sometimes Usnavi hears him muttering to himself about magic babies and “it must be the slushies, it’s gotta be those freaking slushies”.

 

A month later, the outside visits abruptly stop. Sonny doesn’t go outside, Usnavi and Abuela Claudia sleep through the whole night. Everyone in the neighborhood is baffled. Anytime they ask Sonny about it, he replies with a tilt of his head and a cute little  _ “Que?” _ He never talks about the nighttime excursions. Ever. He still wears his light-up shoes, but stops when the lights break several months later. The shoes and the escapades are forgotten and they stop talking about it altogether.

 

Usnavi still wakes up some nights to an eerie giggling from outside. When he looks across the room, Sonny is sleeping soundly in bed. He shakes it off as lingering paranoia and forces himself to go back to sleep and stop thinking about it. The next morning, he convinces himself it’s just a recurring nightmare. He doesn’t speak of it to anyone. Even just thinking of Sonny and those devil shoes sends a shiver up his spine.

 

Unsurprisingly, Benny never accepts a slushie from Sonny again.

 

(Sonny doesn’t receive another pair of light-up shoes. The barrio is glad for it.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi yes have a cute baby Sonny. I got this idea from an artist on tumblr called boopliette, they (sorry idk what pronouns they use so I'm just going neutral) do absolutely adorable In The Heights art and I've just become obsessed with their lil Sonny. I'd probably write fics for all the lil Sonny comics if I thought that seemed like a sane thing to do. 
> 
> Either way, I hope you liked it because I live for baby Sonny


End file.
